Democrats confirm it: Pasch will run against Darling in recall

By Tom Tolan of the Journal Sentinel

Published on: 5/5/2011

The Democratic Party and the committee to recall state Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills) are confirming that state Rep. Sandy Pasch (D-Whitefish Bay) will challenge Darling in a possible recall election.

Gillian Morris, a spokeswoman for the party, confirmed that Pasch would run, as the Journal Sentinel reported in Thursday's paper.

Separately, Kristopher Rowe, organizer of the recall campaign, emailed the Journal Sentinel announcing Pasch's candidacy and praising her as someone who "believes in voting rights, workers rights and she believes in finding solutions together with her colleagues.

"She is hard working and most importantly — she listens to the people she is elected to represent," Rowe's email said.

Darling's election campaign issued a release Thursday in which she said, “I am proud of my record of standing up for hard-working families. I look forward to speaking with voters about Rep. Pasch’s record and her support of the failed policies that helped create a $3.6 billion dollar budget deficit.”

Some 30,000 signatures were filed seeking Darling's recall on April 21. Her deadline for challenging the signatures is Thursday. Other Republicans filing challenges have taken aim at what they said were discrepancies in the original paperwork filed to start the recalls.

The state Government Accountability Board is in the process of vetting signatures for nine senators (three Democrats and six Republicans) against whom signatures have been filed. If the signatures are found adequate, elections for eight of them could be set for July 12.

Democrats are seeking to recall Republicans because they voted for a budget-repair bill that limited bargaining rights for public employees. Republicans are targeting Democrats because they left the state for three weeks to prevent a vote on the bill.